Dorothy’s award stands alongside Olympic medal

THE shelf on which Dorothy Shirley-Emerson keeps her Olympic high-jump silver medal has a new souvenir for company.

And it may mean a spot more dusting for the 74-year-old, but she is happy to give the Greater Manchester Sports Awards’ unsung hero accolade joint pride of place.

Oldham representative Dorothy was chosen ahead of nine other borough winners, including some who had served their club, organisation or community for decades.

“I have been on panels when you go through achievements and decide who has what,” she said. “I hated it because they all deserved it. How can you measure something like this?

“I said in my acceptance speech that I would put it next to my Olympic medal and it does mean that much to me, because it spans a lifetime, from the moment I started volunteer work, turning out on horrible nights and horrible days when it was raining.

“I don’t do it for the recognition; I do it because my life would have been very different if I hadn’t done sport.

“In recent years, we’ve had a terrific expansion of good facilities and opportunities. They weren’t there when I was a child. You had to search for them and for help as well, and when you did find help, they were professional people who were interested in helping youngsters in sport.

“All these people gave their own time. They were volunteers.

“I had my horizons widened because of the opportunities sport gave me, and I want to give something back.”

Dorothy, as chair of the Playing Fields Association, chair of the Sports Council and latterly Volunteer Sport in Oldham, has been a figurehead in the borough for many years.

And her unwavering enthusiasm has rubbed on to all she has met.

Dorothy went on: “My inspiration came from Fanny Blankers-Koen, the Dutch athlete, who won four gold medals at the 1948 Olympics in London.

“I would run round Woodhouses and Fails-worth and think that I was her. It was my dream and you’ve got to have dreams as a child.

“Rebecca Adlington was right when she said that sports men and women are role models. I was so happy that she spoke about that. I like to think that, over the years, I have been a role model, to someone, somewhere.”
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